{"id":8679,"date":"2021-01-14T22:56:41","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T22:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=150237"},"modified":"2021-01-14T22:56:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T22:56:41","slug":"how-trumps-populist-narrative-led-directly-to-the-us-capitol-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/14\/how-trumps-populist-narrative-led-directly-to-the-us-capitol-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump\u2019s populist narrative led directly to the US Capitol attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANALYSIS:<\/strong> By J\u00e9r\u00f4me Viala-Gaudefroy<\/a>, CY Cergy Paris Universit\u00e9<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The January 6 assault on the US Capitol may have been a fitting end to Trump\u2019s presidency. It was the embodiment of his trademark violation of norms and desacralisation of institutions.<\/p>\n

Along with the second impeachment<\/a>, it was also the logical culmination of four years of violently partisan rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump is, of course, less the cause but rather the natural expression of a populism run amok, and one for which Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement were the harbingers.<\/p>\n

Still, he is an impressive \u2013 and appalling \u2013 expression of American populism. As the only representative elected by all Americans, the US president has both institutional and rhetorical power given his unique media exposure.<\/p>\n

The \u201ccommander-in-chief\u201d is also the \u201cstoryteller-in-chief.\u201d His January 6 \u201cSave America\u201d speech<\/a> is a perfect illustration of the way a populist narrative can sway the masses.<\/p>\n

It is essential to understand its mechanism and to recognise its characteristics if we want to prevent a repeat.<\/p>\n

Turning the crowd into \u2018the people\u2019<\/strong>
Populism is a complex and contested political concept. It is nevertheless identifiable by certain characteristics. First, of course, it often involves some form of demagoguery, a rhetorical device that Donald Trump masters perfectly, as rhetoric professor Jennifer Mercieca has shown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re stronger, you\u2019re smarter. You\u2019ve got more going than anybody,\u201d he told his audience on January 6. He also praised the crowd\u2019s pride and supposed patriotism, calling out \u201ca deep and enduring love for America in our hearts [\u2026] an overwhelming pride in this great country.\u201d<\/p>\n

But flattery in itself does not define populism.<\/p>\n

As political scientist Jan-Werner M\u00fcller<\/a> has demonstrated, what characterises populism is above all a very restrictive and exclusive definition of \u201cthe people\u201d. In his inaugural speech<\/a>, President Trump contrasted the \u201cforgotten people\u201d with a corrupt elite.<\/p>\n

When he addressed his supporters on January 6, he said: \u201cYou are the real people\u201d which he defined as \u201cthe people that built this nation\u201d, and contrary to \u201cthe people that tore down our nation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerican people\u201d are also the people who \u201cdo not believe the corrupt fake news anymore\u201d.<\/p>\n

As used by Trump, \u201cthe people\u201d is both a rhetorical construction and an embodied metaphor found in phrasing like \u201cthe incredible patriots here today\u201d and \u201cthe magnitude of the crowd\u201d stretching \u201call the way to the monument in Washington\u201d.<\/p>\n

For the president, size is a sign of moral virtue: \u201cAs this enormous crowd shows,\u201d he says, \u201cwe have truth and justice on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n

As many observers have noted, Trump is obsessed with crowd size. One of the very first lies from his spokesperson regarded the size of the 2016 inauguration crowd<\/a>, how it was bigger than Obama\u2019s in 2009, despite clear evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n

This was the first of thousands of \u201calternative facts\u201d that came to define Trump\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

A victimised people<\/strong>
Another characteristic of Trump\u2019s \u201cpeople\u201d is their victim status. They are the victims of a corrupt system and the \u201cfake news media\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also makes a link between \u201cthe country that has had enough\u201d and a we<\/em> who will \u201cnot take it any longer\u201d because \u201cthat\u2019s what this is all about\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s people identify with him through this victimisation. Hence the use of the subject pronoun we<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s incredible what we<\/em> have to go through\u201d he laments, building a cognitive bias<\/a> that favours adherence to his numerous falsehoods<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Victimisation is an essential element of the populist discourse. It emphasises the innocence and the purity of the people (and their leader). It makes any future action, even illegal, morally justifiable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you catch someone in the act of fraud,\u201d said the president, \u201cyou\u2019re allowed to follow very different rules.\u201d In other words, it gives a blank check for illegal actions that will happen next.<\/p>\n

An inner enemy<\/strong>
This rhetoric of victimization is also illustrated by the construction of the figure of an enemy who is no longer a foreign outsider but fellow Americans, as I have analyzed thoroughly elsewhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Trump\u2019s \u201cSave America\u201d speech, this enemy was primarily the news media. They \u201csuppress speech,\u201d and even \u201cthought\u201d.<\/p>\n

They are the \u201cenemy of the people\u201d and \u201cthe biggest problem we have in this country\u201d.<\/p>\n

The expression \u201cenemy of the people\u201d is not new: it has its origins in the Roman Republic and was used during the French Revolution. But there is a certain irony in Trump using a term made particularly popular by the Soviet Union while comparing the suppression by the media to \u201cwhat happens in a communist country\u201d.<\/p>\n

This view of the \u201cenemy press\u201d echoes that of Richard Nixon, as outlined in a recent article by RonNell Andersen Jones and Lisa Grow Sun<\/a>. But Trump is much more vehement in his public attacks.<\/p>\n

And the enemies he mentioned are not limited to the press: he also attacked the \u201cbig tech\u201d who \u201crigged the election,\u201d the Democrats and the \u201cradical left\u201d that will \u201cdestroy our country,\u201d the Republicans such as Mitch McConnell, Bill Barr, and Liz Cheney who refused to back his false claims, or the Supreme Court that \u201churts our country\u201d.<\/p>\n

An existential threat<\/strong>
The populist discourse also requires the construction of a permanent crisis. The enumeration of numerous enemies leads to an implacable logic: \u201cOur country has been under siege.\u201d<\/p>\n

This type of war lexicon is all the more effective that the emotional charge is reinforced with the evocation of children:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThey also want to indoctrinate your children at school by teaching them things that aren\u2019t so. They want to indoctrinate your children. It\u2019s all part of the comprehensive assault on our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This threat of \u201cindoctrination of children\u201d validates the policy in favour of private schools put in place by the Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos<\/a>. It may also echo QAnon\u2019s conspiracy theories that portray Donald Trump as the hero of a struggle against the \u201cdeep state\u201d and a supposed cabal of Democratic politicians and celebrities baselessly accused of abusing children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But, more generally, what is at stake is the very existence of the nation: \u201cIf you don\u2019t fight like hell,\u201d the president warned, \u201cyou won\u2019t have a country anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

So now, said the president, \u201cthe American people [are] finally standing up and saying, \u201cNo\u201d.<\/p>\n

Heroic action: virtuous strength versus shameful weakness<\/strong>
By standing up and fighting, Trump\u2019s \u201cpeople\u201d can become heroic. It is common for US presidents to rely on the trope of the hero, a figure whose strength is always kept in check by virtue.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump presents a very different narrative where heroism is exclusively defined by unchecked strength, to the point that strength is a virtue in and of itself, as I developed previously in my research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to show strength, and you have to be strong,\u201d he repeated, and members of Congress who promised to oppose the certification of votes became \u201cwarriors\u201d.<\/p>\n

The claim that \u201cWe will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies\u201d is also a way to refuse to be weak. After repeating the term \u201cweak Republicans\u201d several times, Trump clearly showed he enjoyed this expression, insisting he was going to use the term from then on.<\/p>\n

This binary view of strength vs. weakness echoes a very conservative and gendered narrative that appeals to Donald Trump\u2019s base, especially evangelicals: Trump\u2019s hypermasculinity is contrasted to the Democrats\u2019 enlightened masculinity, portrayed as weak and feminine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An extreme incarnation of this hypermasculinity can be found in the neo-fascist organisation Proud Boys<\/a> present among his supporters.<\/p>\n

At the end of his speech, when Trump encouraged his supporters to take action by going to Capitol Hill, he asked the crowd to \u201cgive our Republicans \u2013 the weak ones, because the strong ones don\u2019t need any of our help [\u2026] \u2013 the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country\u201d.<\/p>\n

As the speech reached its crescendo, Trump emphasised his supporters\u2019 strong emotional bond with him, and his with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to walk down, and I\u2019ll be there with you\u201d, he promised, as if they would be protected by a Christ-like presence that did not even have to materialise \u2013 and it didn\u2019t. Instead, as what was now a mob moved toward the Capitol, Trump was driven back to the White House, where he watched the assault unfold on live television<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The remains of the day<\/strong>
The tragic events of January 6 and their aftermath are now well known. Five people died, including police officer Brian Sicknick, who was beaten to death by the pro-Trump mob<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite the violent attack, Congress was able to reconvene and formally recognise the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris. But the risk was grave and the wounds deep.<\/p>\n

All of this was made possible by Donald Trump ability and willingness to heighten and take advantage of his supporters\u2019 sense of exclusion (economic, social or otherwise), fear of cultural and identity dispossession, and distrust toward US institutions.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s populist narrative and coded language gave them a feeling of empowerment and encouraged them to imagine that a violent attack on Congress would be a patriotic, heroic act.<\/p>\n

This is partly why, despite what happened on Capitol Hill, his approval rating remains at 40 percent<\/a>. If his popularity among his voters may have slightly declined, it is still close to 80 percent, and about one in five Republicans (22 percent according to Reuters-Ipsos<\/a>, or nearly 15 million Americans) claims to support the rioters\u2019 actions.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, a large majority of them continue to believe what the president has been saying for months<\/a>: that the election was \u201crigged\u201d, and that Joe Biden is therefore illegitimately president-elect.<\/p>\n

With the second impeachment against Donald Trump and the threat of further attacks by his supporters on American institutions and elected officials in Washington and across the nation, and a pandemic, the next few days, weeks, and even months could prove crucial for American democracy.\"The<\/p>\n

By Dr J\u00e9r\u00f4me Viala-Gaudefroy<\/a>, assistant lecturer, CY Cergy Paris Universit\u00e9<\/a><\/em>. This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Print<\/a><\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANALYSIS: By J\u00e9r\u00f4me Viala-Gaudefroy, CY Cergy Paris Universit\u00e9 The January 6 assault on the US Capitol may have been a fitting end to Trump\u2019s presidency. It was the\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1682,2570,1827,432,2571,49,668,5,6,137,118,982,4,14,2572,2573,2574,537,257,2575],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8680,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8679\/revisions\/8680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}